


trajectories of happily ever after

by polkadot



Category: Actor RPF
Genre: Canon Gay Relationship, Fluff, Future Fic, Happy Ending, M/M, Stealth Crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-19
Updated: 2013-02-19
Packaged: 2017-11-29 19:56:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/690835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polkadot/pseuds/polkadot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s 2021, and David’s trying to make the best birthday cake ever. Neil helps in his own inimitable way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	trajectories of happily ever after

David frowns at the cake in front of him. It still needs something. He’s never been that much of a pastry chef – even before his acting career took off and he got too busy to cook much, he was always more on the savory side of things – but even he can see that this cake needs something. 

Perhaps trick candles that won’t let you blow them out? But Harper doesn’t have much patience for trick things. She’d probably roll her eyes and declare them to be boring, and then Neil would feel obliged to stick them in his nose and pretend to be a dragon, and much as David loves his husband’s pyrotechnic tendencies, he’s pretty sure the ensuing nostril burns would not be covered by _Barnum’s_ insurance policy. He can see the headlines now: “Superstar Burns Nose Off, Smash West End Musical Closes” (or perhaps something more catchy – he’s never claimed to have a flair for the written word), and while he does miss the States at times, he’s not ready to leave London yet. Also Neil burning his nose off would be sad. If hilarious.

He shakes himself. No trick candles. Maybe bright pink frosting? Both Harper and Jude are going through a pink phase at the moment; Jude’s even been asking, with the intent dedication that only a six-year-old can manage, if he can get his hair dyed pink. (David blames Neil. Yes, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to top themselves each year at Halloween, but the lime-green hair last year may have been a mistake. To their younger two, overnight Everything Became Possible.)

So maybe not pink frosting, lest Jude be overcome with the joy of pink and find himself inspired to take matters into his own hands with one of his bright pink markers. (They’ve struck a deal with him that if he still wants to go pink at Christmas, they’ll let him – Neil made a convincing argument for letting kids express themselves, as long as they’re sure what they want – but that’s two months away still, and Jude’s not the most patient of kids. Takes after his dads that way.) 

David sighs and leans back against the breakfast island. Anything with food coloring was probably a bad idea anyway, with Gideon on an anti-chemicals kick. Teach a kid to love reading, and before you know it, he’s examining the ingredient list on his dad’s Red Bull and telling everyone that if you can’t pronounce something, you shouldn’t be putting it in your body. (Neil’s prompt response that he’d learn how to pronounce the chemicals hadn’t gone over well with their ten-year-old scholar. David finds it continually hilarious that they’re kind of raising a Doogie. Or even two Doogies: there’s nothing Elsie likes more than reading, and she’s only five.)

Okay, no trick candles and no pink frosting. Something that all six of them will enjoy, so no coconut…If he’d thought ahead, David could have made a themed cake. He’s pretty sure they sell soccer-shaped cake pans around here, even if they’d call them “football tins” or something like that. He could have even spelled out Harper’s uniform number with little chocolate soccer balls. But it’s all well and good to have that brainstorm now, on the morning of her birthday, with a different cake already baked.

“You’re glaring at that poor cake like you’re about to Hulk out on it,” Neil observes, from somewhere behind him. “What did it ever do to you?”

David scowls. “It’s too ordinary.” The words come out rather too plaintively for his taste. “Gideon’s is awesome – it’ll be the most delicious unkempt stack of books made out of cake ever. Harper’s is just a cake, though.”

“Sparkler candles,” Neil says immediately, coming to lean on the island next to him and stare contemplatively at the cake. 

“Don’t you get enough pyrotechnics at work? Wait, don’t answer that. We can have sparkler candles for Elsie’s birthday, if they’re safe and if you promise to stay away from them, but I don’t think Harper would like them. She’s extroverted, sure, but not pyrotechnically extroverted.”

Neil considers the problem, setting his cup of coffee down on the counter to put his arm around David’s shoulder. “It looks like an awesome cake to me. I’m sure it’s delicious.”

“You’re just saying that because I baked it and you want into my pants,” David says dryly, although he still leans into the embrace. 

Neil presses a chaste kiss to his ear, then does something dirty with his tongue that has David laughing and struggling to extricate himself. “And yet even though you know my moves, they still work on you.”

David grins at him. Yes, they still do, even after all these years.

(Sometimes David thinks back to the person he was before he met Neil, and he wonders whether that kid would even recognize him. Seventeen _years_ with the same person, when he used to hop beds with such blithe unconcern! Married – could he have even imagined that would be legal in all fifty states? Four children, the gaggle he’d always wanted. And that’s not even counting the whole movie star thing – although he thinks young-him would have had no problem believing that last one. Young-him had been cocky.)

“So, legendary cake-baker, can I tempt you back upstairs?” Neil asks, snaking a long finger under his apron and into the waistband of his pants. “There are advantages to having your last kid finally reach school age, and those include an empty house in the mornings.”

David sighs. “I have to figure this out first. Birthday cakes are a big deal.”

“I’ll tell you what else is a big deal,” Neil says, dropping his voice into the suggestive register that always sends shivers up David’s spine. 

David snorts, and tips his head back to rest on Neil’s shoulder. “Go on, then, tell me.”

The warmth of the early morning sunshine – oh, who’s he kidding, it’s October in _London_ , it’s neither all that early or all that warm – falls across his arm, sliding through their curtains. It’s surprisingly peaceful, for all that the bustle of the city is right outside their front door; he can hear the siren of an ambulance somewhere far away, but here in the curve of Neil’s arm, the loudest sound is the rhythm of his husband’s breathing.

Neil’s voice is thoughtful, slow, as if he’s caught a bit of the quiet magic in the air. “There was once this fellow. He was a great guy and a wonderful dad. He could sing and dance and act and cook, and he was always nice to everyone, even paparazzi and nosy interviewers. Just a genuinely nice guy.”

“What happened to him?” David murmurs, leaning his head against Neil’s.

“He got cast in a film. He played the shy, awkward, adorable boy-next-door who the heroine always took for granted, and then in the second half of the movie it turned out that he was _actually_ a superspy, a sort of James Bond except much nicer and with better fashion sense. And perhaps a bit shyer and awkwarder, but it was all part of his charm.”

“Flatterer,” David says, trying not to laugh. “What happened next?”

Neil hums reflectively. “The heroine fell in love with him, and America fell in love with both of them. The romantic comedy slash spy thriller was a box office smash, and it made him a household name overnight. His fiancé was very jealous, I hear.”

“I heard his fiancé was very supportive,” David says. “I heard he had just done a few hit movies himself and then got a new hit television show, his third. I heard he was the sweetest, most excited, biggest fan of a fiancé ever.”

“Well, if you’ve heard that, perhaps you’ve heard that they got married? Or even, to skip ahead a bit, that they’ve recently moved to London with their family so that the guy can film his latest movie and his husband can star in the musical he’s always dreamed of doing.”

“I might have heard something about it,” David says. “I think I saw it in _People_. God, those two are such publicity hogs and nauseatingly happy together. You’d think they fell more in love every year, from the way they talk.”

“Yeah, it’s a bit too happily ever after for my taste,” Neil agrees. “Give me a thirty-day Hollywood relationship and subsequent hit break-up song any day.”

They stand together in the morning sunshine.

After a minute, Neil says, “Actually, to return to my earlier question, you know what is _actually_ a big deal?”

“I thought it was the guy.”

“Yeah, but it’s also my penis.”

David sighs and pulls away, the spell broken. “I should have seen that one coming.”

Neil’s eyebrows shoot up merrily. “Wanna go upstairs and see it coming?”

“Well, I certainly didn’t marry you for your sense of humor,” David says, rolling his eyes. 

Neil grins. “You walked into that one. And yeah, you did marry me for my sense of humor, I’m pretty sure. That or my good looks. Or my massive…”

“Go on, get out of my kitchen,” David says, sighing. “Go get the mail or something. I still need to figure out what to do with Harper’s cake.”

As Neil vanishes in the direction of the front door mail slot, David stares at the recalcitrant cake again. No trick candles. No pink frosting. No soccer cake. No sparkler candles.

And then it comes to him all in a flash. He’s a genius.

By the time Neil gets back with the mail, David’s already pulled out his laptop and started to google where he can find the supplies he’ll need. He’s found edible glitter already, which is a good start. Harper’s turning eleven, most eleven-year-old girls (and plenty of eleven-year-old boys) love edible glitter.

“I think I’ve solved it,” he tells Neil. “And I think if I’m lucky I’ll be able to get out and back in an hour or so, say maybe another hour to decorate, and then we’ll still have a bit of time before the kids get home from school. You’ll be able to take me upstairs after all.”

When David looks up to grin cheekily at Neil, however, he’s surprised by the look on his husband’s face. It’s like Neil’s seen a ghost.

“Or we can do it now if you want?” he offers. “I mean, there’s no rush to get this done, as long as the cakes are ready when the kids get home.”

Neil shakes his head, still looking a bit dazed. “It’s not that. Forget the cakes.”

“Forget the cakes?” David makes a face at him. “Blasphemy. What’s going on?”

Neil holds the mail out to him.

David takes it, frowning down at it. “Who mails things these days, anyways?” A thought strikes him. “Oooh, is it a formal invitation for you to host the Oscars again? I told you that you did such a good job last time that you’d be asked back. Except do they ask you if they think you might get nominated? That’d be awkward, wouldn’t it? Or I might get nominated. If I win you could kiss me on stage and make the kids cringe at their embarrassing dads.”

“Stop chattering and _look_ ,” Neil says, shifting from foot to foot.

David looks.

Outside their London home, on Harper and Gideon’s eleventh birthday, an owl takes to the skies.

And another adventure begins.


End file.
